TODD GITLIN

«Painting and serious writing were the avant-garde. Blankness was essentiel, of course in the programmatic flatness of much american painting in the sixties and after; in a high-conception, high turnover world where everything trades on appearance and every appearance has its price, to insist on depth would be sink into pathetic nostalgia for some unmoved mover. Andy Warhol's self -conscious images called attention to their sheer «imageness» reminded the viewer how they were derivative, mechanical, and concocted; how laughable it would be to seek authentic meaning while strolling down the long, long aisles of the social supermarket».